Hope they succeed

[Misteral 2,932]

From last weekend's Scotland on Sunday. Apologies if been posted before. Hope they succeed.

Legal group seeks to close Catholic schools

By Gareth Rose

Home Affairs Correspondent

Bomb threat: Celtic's Neil Lennon

A LEADING legal campaign group has called for the end of separate Catholic education as the only way of "confronting and counteracting sectarianism" in Scotland.

An editorial in the journal of the Scottish Legal Action Group urges the Scottish Government to create a clear division between church and state by "ending religious instruction and denominational schools" paid by the taxpayer.

The suggestion follows growing concern about old-firm related sectarianism,which has included parcel bombs sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon, his QC Paul McBride, and former MSP Trish Godman. Following clashes in a cup tie between Rangers and Celtic in March, an emergency summit was held and a plan devised to crackdown on alcohol and religion-fuelled violence.

However, the Scolag journal, set up in 1975, believes the problem starts with segregated education in the country's 387 Catholic schools. It warns: "The roots and effect of sectarianism lie beyond the game and we have increasingly resorted to the law to address unfair discrimination in employment, housing, and the provision of services. The Scottish Parliament has expressly legislated to make religious discrimination an aggravation to a criminal offence. But the degree to which such legal measures can counteract sectarianism is questionable and even doubtful when in other regards our law and civic bodies continue to enshrine, protect and systematically promote social division on religious lines."

It adds: "That is done most widely and effectively in our education system where the maintenance of religious instruction and observance, along with the public funding of denominational schools create and perpetuate religious discrimination."

It argues that "public funds should not be spent on religious observance", and that having Catholic and Jewish schools but no Muslim ones, for example, is discriminatory.

The Catholic Church condemned the views as "blinded bigotry." Peter Kearney, for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: "These comments constitute an ill-informed and unprovoked attack on religious freedom.

"Bearing in mind that over 95 per cent of Scottish Catholics attend Catholic schools and over 50 per cent of Scots Catholics marry non-Catholics, our schools, self-evidently, do not create life-long social divisions, quite the opposite."

However, Andrew Wilson, editor of the journal, said: "Separate education is fundamental to continuing discrimination in Scotland and getting rid of Catholic schools is fundamental to tackling it.

"In Scotland, when you go into a social gathering one of the first questions people ask is what school you went to, which is code for what religion are you, because they want to know if you're one of 'us'. It's that pernicious."

The government will spend £525,000 tackling sectarianism in 2011-12

Since the passage of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 made religious discrimination an aggravator to a criminal offence - entailing a stronger sentence - prosecutions have risen from 272 in 2003-04 to 669 in 2008-09.

[Budswiser 196]

From last weekend's Scotland on Sunday. Apologies if been posted before. Hope they succeed.

Legal group seeks to close Catholic schools

By Gareth Rose

Home Affairs Correspondent

Bomb threat: Celtic's Neil Lennon

A LEADING legal campaign group has called for the end of separate Catholic education as the only way of "confronting and counteracting sectarianism" in Scotland.

An editorial in the journal of the Scottish Legal Action Group urges the Scottish Government to create a clear division between church and state by "ending religious instruction and denominational schools" paid by the taxpayer.

The suggestion follows growing concern about old-firm related sectarianism,which has included parcel bombs sent to Celtic manager Neil Lennon, his QC Paul McBride, and former MSP Trish Godman. Following clashes in a cup tie between Rangers and Celtic in March, an emergency summit was held and a plan devised to crackdown on alcohol and religion-fuelled violence.

However, the Scolag journal, set up in 1975, believes the problem starts with segregated education in the country's 387 Catholic schools. It warns: "The roots and effect of sectarianism lie beyond the game and we have increasingly resorted to the law to address unfair discrimination in employment, housing, and the provision of services. The Scottish Parliament has expressly legislated to make religious discrimination an aggravation to a criminal offence. But the degree to which such legal measures can counteract sectarianism is questionable and even doubtful when in other regards our law and civic bodies continue to enshrine, protect and systematically promote social division on religious lines."

It adds: "That is done most widely and effectively in our education system where the maintenance of religious instruction and observance, along with the public funding of denominational schools create and perpetuate religious discrimination."

It argues that "public funds should not be spent on religious observance", and that having Catholic and Jewish schools but no Muslim ones, for example, is discriminatory.

The Catholic Church condemned the views as "blinded bigotry." Peter Kearney, for the Catholic Church in Scotland, said: "These comments constitute an ill-informed and unprovoked attack on religious freedom.

"Bearing in mind that over 95 per cent of Scottish Catholics attend Catholic schools and over 50 per cent of Scots Catholics marry non-Catholics, our schools, self-evidently, do not create life-long social divisions, quite the opposite."

However, Andrew Wilson, editor of the journal, said: "Separate education is fundamental to continuing discrimination in Scotland and getting rid of Catholic schools is fundamental to tackling it.

"In Scotland, when you go into a social gathering one of the first questions people ask is what school you went to, which is code for what religion are you, because they want to know if you're one of 'us'. It's that pernicious."

The government will spend £525,000 tackling sectarianism in 2011-12

Since the passage of the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 made religious discrimination an aggravator to a criminal offence - entailing a stronger sentence - prosecutions have risen from 272 in 2003-04 to 669 in 2008-09.

The catholic church will never give up its percieved right to seperate education.

They want to maintain the influence over the future generations at all costs. There is no doubt in my mind that RC schools are probably the biggest single reason for social division in this country.

[Turnberry18 3,204]

If we were to have seperate Muslim schools in this country would people see this as a way to harmonise and integrate Islam into scottish society?- so why is this argument being used to augment the opinion that seperating children at the age of 5 is somehow going to have no bearing on deterring sectarianism in Scottish society? It does not add up. Would we tolerate seperate places of work? Education is a democratic right, it offers so much to a society, but what education are we offering a child if he is looking through the school fence at his friends and accentuating differences by doing so? We are now a pluralistic society more than we have ever been, the eductation of our children should reflect that pluralism

[gunslinger 270]

my borther in law was telling me some of what goes on in theese bigot factories recently. no wonder the contries fucked.

when the were coming up to some event like a comirmation or some such shit he says its all they talked about in every class for weeks before hand.

every teacher talking about religion and such.

i expect its changed a bit recently but this focus on sectarianism has do shine a very very bright spotlight on this schooling system.

[RFC55 108,841]

Kearney is an embaresment. Can anyone tell me why anytime someone voices a concern against the mass peadophile cult that is Catholicsm then its bigoted?

[Carsons Dog 9,878]

A respected group like the Scottish Legal Action Group makes an informed opinion on a social matter in Scotland and Kearney says they are "Blinded by bigotry"

The usual knee-jerk scattergun scare tactics from a desperate man

I think they should sue him for defamation